Weekend Trip to Bantayan

Our expensive van drive up to the port to take a ferry to Bantayan wouldn't be complete without a stop to Jollibee.

Today Mike, Suzette, Reggie and I went off to a weekend trip to Bantayan. This required us to drive for a couple hours in a really expensive van and then take a short ferry ride to the island. We arrived in Bantayan by around 4 PM and made our way to the resort. We booked one of the more expensive resorts on the island because a few people wanted to stay in comfort. When we arrived at the resort, I was a little unimpressed with the beach and the resort. The resort was average and the beach was a little dirty with mostly organic debris.

Arriving at the pier in Bantayan.

View from our resort when we arrived.

The lifeguard of the beach.

Mike and Reggie wanted to rent motorbikes which I was slightly opposed to do because it was almost night time and it seemed like a waste to rent bikes for a day rate. Since there was nothing else to do, we rented three bikes. We decided to bike into downtown to do a little exploring and to see the oldest church in the Philippines. The drive to downtown was fun and the seeing the church was nice. Downtown had a good amount of life and was fairly clean and nice. For some reason, we didn’t stay in downtown very long.

Fueled by Coke—A small store selling gasoline by the liter in Coke bottles.

Bantayan Church in downtown Bantayan. It's the second oldest standing structure in the Philippines and is made of coral.

Somewhere between our resort and downtown—which is a long distance—we ate at some all you can eat restaurant owned by a French guy. The food was diverse and quite tasty. After dinner we asked a few locals where a good bar was and they drove us to one called Zen Zebar. When we got to Zen Zebar, a girl outside greeted us and encouraged us to come inside.

The band that played at Zen Zebar was great. The guitarist really rocked it out and the singer, and her voice, was beautiful.

Inside there were no customers and the band was just hanging around. We sat down at a table, ordered some beers, and the band started to play. It was like our own private concert. The band was quite good and the manager of the bar was very hospitable. The guitarist of the band was really talented. When the band went on a break Mike and I went outside and got to meet all the band members. It was great chatting with them and learning a little bit about them. They all have different jobs during the day and are all locals to Bantayan.



- jason